Business – Innovation: Start or End ?

It’s been a long time since Me and Nishchal had been searching something innovative in the competitive market, but when nothing worked out, we were reviving ourselves sitting near Fateh Sagar Lake, Udaipur. We lost all our hopes thinking that there is nothing left for us to start with because whatever we thought to start or begin with already existed in the market. Hence, we concluded that instead of making a strategy for new business we should make strategy on how to survive in this competitive market.

With these thoughts still in the mind, One day I was reading a book, “Blue Ocean Strategy”* which took the wind out of my sails and bolstered me to start something innovative.

It says, “Look back one hundred years and ask yourself, How many of today’s industries were then unknown. .?? The answer: Many industries as basic as automobiles, music recording, aviation, petrochemicals, health care, and management consulting were unheard of or had just begun to emerge at that time.

Now turn the clock back only thirty years.

Again, a plethora of multi-billion-dollar industries jumps out - mutual funds, cell phones, gas-fired electricity plants, biotechnology, discount retail, express package delivery, minivans, snowboards, coffee bars, and home videos, to name a few. Just three decade ago, none of these industries existed in a meaningful way.

Now put the clock forward twenty years – or perhaps fifty years – and ask yourself how many now unknown industries will likely exist them. If history is any predictor of the future, again the answer is many of them. History teaches us that we’ve a hugely underestimated capacity to create new industries and re-create existing ones.”

The passionate lines from the book drove me to look the businesses around in more depth. To start with I explored business which had products for daily use like hair care, and I found that:-

Prior to 1950’s people used soaps, herbs and other natural components to wash their hair, at that point nobody ever thought that there can be a next step to it which would be called “Shampoo”.

After Shampoo, it was conditioner to make your hair not only clean but more soft and shiny.

To my surprise, there were so many such examples I explored and thought that there was a time when these products were innovation, but since it is so easily available, we as businessman tend to forget them. Such examples are: